


we said forever, forever ago

by threefouram



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: M/M, Namelessshipping, Post-Alola, established relationship/they're married, in which Green and Red get back to Viridian after being in Alola for quite a while, it gets a bit reflective on both sides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 09:51:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10534017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefouram/pseuds/threefouram
Summary: It all still smells like home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from Do You Remember? (the other half of 23) by The Maine, but I listened to Birds (Thomas Sanders & dodie) while writing this because it soothes me and I liked the mood of it.
> 
> enjoy.

Viridian is colder than than he remembers it being.  
  
That is the first thought he has as he dives face-first into his sheets.  
  
It all still smells like home, but there is no warmth that could compare to his  _just got married_ euphoria, not right now. ( _Maybe later_ , he thinks.) It's a brilliant feeling, the one stirring in his stomach. It makes him smile so hard into the pillows that he is so sure his teeth are still going to be imprinted on them by the next century.  
  
Home is a nice place to be.  
  
He doesn't think he would have minded much, if they had stayed in Alola for another week or decade. They wouldn't have spent the first chapter of their married lives there if it wasn't such a wonderful place. (Which it is, Pokemon roaming around everywhere, the seaside breeze, and the charisma of the people there—it was all beyond magnificent.) Home, though— Kanto, this? This is enough comfort to last them forever, so he considers that they'd always find reason to go back here. In this lifetime, or any other.  
  
It's teetering between afternoon and night time. It is kind of refreshing— the air in the city that waltzes in through the windows like it was invited. The cooler atmosphere is an excuse to cuddle with his boyfriend more than anything— excuse him,  _husband_. The islands were nice and all, plants everywhere and the scent of salt-water in the air, but the climate was barely appropriate for clothes, let alone exchanging body heat. The cold, it's not a bad thing. His skin had definitely turned more pink than tan in the last several months so he could do with a little less heat in his life.  
  
On the plane home, he had gotten no sleep whatsoever. This means that the flight from Alola to Kanto fully allowed that stupid little brain of his to wander, and get lost thinking about things that might not even matter anymore.  
  
For instance, he had wondered if it was Red.  
  
Red, that brought out the better in him.  
  
These days, Pokemon (wild, and trained alike) find him more approachable. He's not as hot-headed and teenage-brained as he used to be, a calmer aura tends to float around him. He prefers the company of Pokemon to people nowadays, so much so that for the first few months of his Gym Leadership, his trainers usually found him wandering about in Viridian Forest. His bond with his own team has strengthened immensely, and they truly have come a long way from back when he first embarked on his journey. It's kind of a magical feeling, to be able to see the wonders of Pokemon even into his twenties.  
  
His grandfather had made amends with him a few years after Red disappeared, and he's done his part in healing their relationship as well. They still don't talk much, but sometimes Daisy would drag him back to Pallet Town for dinner or an afternoon chat, and he can't say he puts up much of a fight. His attitude has mellowed down considerably (though he's still forever smug), so the clashing between him and the professor had definitely decreased significantly. He's learned to appreciate the man in his own stubborn way.  
  
People began referring to him as  _Gym Leader Green_ rather than  _Green Oak, grandson of Professor Samuel Oak_ , and it was a breath of fresh air to have his own name. Sure,  _Champion Green_ would have had a nice ring to it, but at present, he's so glad to be able to bury that in the past. All this was fine, he is more than happy right where he is.  
  
And, truth be told, it probably wasn't Red. He and Red had been friends from a young age, so more than anything, they grew up parallel to each other.  
  
What brought out the good in him? He likes to think it was time, and self-reflection, and wallowing in his own misery waiting for the love of his life to come around— and then taking matters into his own hands, changing the things that needed to be changed because he should have started fixing his life sooner anyway. Moving from Pallet to Viridian wasn't the most drastic change, but it was one of the most necessary. After becoming Gym Leader and removing the remnants of Team Rocket in the place, he would have liked to believe that was the beginning of his self-discovery, and his happiness.  
  
Finding Red was great, and he'd never admit it to Gold, but he's really grateful for that reckless Johto kid. But ultimately, what makes them work out now, after all those years, was the time they had been apart that allowed them to find themselves separately before anything.  
  
But that was the plane. Right now, there's perhaps a million things that should be running in his mind. It's rather quiet though. He's more at peace with himself these days. There is only one thing running in his mind— He wonders briefly if Red ever got tired of running around up there. Though, he supposes that the climate up at Mt. Silver while he trained had gotten his stamina ridiculously high; and Red must've gotten a lot of practice running, what with Green chasing after him for years.  
  
There is a million things that should be running in his mind, but he's tired, and in love, but mostly tired so he pushes all of them right out of his brain. His responsibility to his gym is off-hold by early the next morning, and Lance had promised him a pile of paperwork would be waiting for him at his office after he got off of his _wedding high_  but he just sighs against the covers of his—  _their_ bed— because Red's not going anywhere anymore.  
  
The smile on his face seems to have replaced that ever-present smirk of his.  
  
It all still smells like home.  
  
Maybe because it is.  
  
Maybe because a blur of raven hair and red eyes finds his way next to him, and  _that_ is home.  
  
All he wants to do right now is wait for the night to fall and go to sleep.  
  
Red, however, finds that the ideal thing to do is drag him out of internal  _my life is great, I could die happy_ spiel, and shoves his face off the pillows so they're facing each other. There's a playful glint in his eyes. He, unlike the idiot next to him, had fallen asleep on the way back. Whatever energy is crawling out of Green's system right now, it's still very much buzzing in him. He as  _this moment could last forever_ as Green is (except maybe a bit less emotional about it because Green is definitely the more emotional one between the two of them), one could say that. But he was just a little less euphoric, and a little more  _we have forever to be together, I'm going to sleep_.  
  
He's more than happy to be home. Alola was great— quite welcoming, incredibly hospitable with smiles as warm as their weather, and so pretty. But he thinks that Mt. Silver is all the distance from home that he needs. (They never, technically, made it official that they were living together. Still, he doesn't even second-guess calling it home. The line between visiting Viridian for weeks at a time and moving in with Green blurred rather quickly.)  
  
There's a warm feeling pooling in his gut, remnants of the tropical climate keeping his heartbeat steadily fast.  
  
He thinks the Gym Leader is just being silly when he's told that Viridian has gotten colder. The idea seems preposterous, considering global warming is kind of a thing. He tells the brunette that it's definitely not any colder than it had been before they left, and if it is, then he should just deal with it. But of course, he's one to talk, living on an ice-trap people call a mountain has desensitized him to the word cold.  
  
Married life has been fun, at least the first three months have been— between the Battle Tree and their honeymoon, he's fallen in love with Green all over again. It puts his mind at ease that the complicate mess of their relationship all those years ago had worked out after all. That said, he's ready to retire the high of being newly-weds, and go back to just being  _Red and Green_ and living their lives the best way they know how— together, but separate enough.  
  
Green's smile has turned lazy, and so has the force that keeps his eyelids open. He pokes a finger against his lover's side, who grunts at his touch. He vaguely acknowledges grumbled words coming from his husband's lips that tell him to just go to sleep, but he doesn't follow through. There is much to stay up for. He wants to drag the other man up their roof and watch the sun set as the cool metal presses against their skin. He wants to do  _something_.  
  
Something with Green, funnily enough, even though they'd just spent the last few months glued to each other.  
  
Maybe they were making up for lost time. But in all honesty, he doesn't see Mt. Silver as lost time anymore.  
  
Some people had their outlets. That's an important thing in a person's life, a medium of expression, how they are able to _feel_. Red has Pokemon and his introversion— Mt. Silver was his way of channeling both of those at the same time. The peace and quiet in his head would provide great contrast to the occasional blizzards and hail storms up there. But to him, those were just white noise that left him room to think about other things, like who he is, and _why_ he is.   
  
There were days up there, if he was being honest, that he wondered if his choices were selfish.  
  
The first person he would consider was his mother. Single mother, only son— and he'd left more than once. His mother has always been more a worrier than a warrior, he knows this. Going off on a region-wide journey? She could only hope he had been eating properly and getting enough sleep. Disbanding Team Rocket? That was awfully brave and heroic of him, but she wasn't particularly thrilled to see news broadcasts on her son dealing with a criminal organization. Champion? She was so damn proud, but did it mean he'd finally come home? And on top of that, she had known that the rivalry his son and Green had formed between them would have caught up to them eventually. So, climbing up a freezing mountain in his normal clothes to stay up there for years? Needless to say, she was pretty upset when he left.  
  
Then Lance. Maybe Professor Oak. Sometimes Gold, who always came up and right back down defeated— the boy reminds him of his youth, is all.  
  
Most times, Green.  
  
But other days, no name comes up in his brain. Those days, he didn't think about whether or not he was selfish.  
  
Mt. Silver had one purpose to him, and that was to aid him in getting what he wanted— to be a better trainer, better friend, better person. Time helped a lot, too. It doesn't heal all wounds if you don't let it, but he took it with open arms and let it do its thing. Because even when the universe seems to hate you, it still probably knows what it's doing. It knows better than us, at least. Because we're all only human.  
  
Green wasn't the same person before and after Mt. Silver, but to be fair, neither was he.  
  
In a way, that was the brilliance of it. Of the human tendency to grow, of friendship, of love.  
  
They say, home is where the heart is, and though he doesn't believe in cheesy overused quotes, he can't help but feel like this is where they're supposed to be.  
  
He shifts and moves their bodies around until they're all intertwined and cuddling. He smiles at the warmth, and he can tell you with his eyes closed where their skin meets. The bridge of his nose brushes against brunette hair and he doesn't mind one bit. Pikachu and Eevee are snoring softly away in a corner, and they look almost as married as their trainers. (Except, as he laces their hands together, the bands on their fingers touch and stay connected.) They're left as just a bundle of limbs in the middle of a bed in an apartment in the middle of Viridian City— a speck in the universe, perhaps, but they had no problem being small  _together_.  
  
  
  
Red whispers something in his ear, something that goes right over his marriage high, but he thinks it to be something along the lines of  _just a while longer, stay up with me_.  
  
  
  
  
  
"So, here's to forever, huh?"  
  
"It's always been forever."


End file.
